Farmer Boy

Almanzo loves that Saturday is baking day, but each Saturday night is bath time, which he hates. Mother is cooking donuts (twisted and fried), bread, pies, and other food for the week. After sneaking food, Royal and Almanzo are sent outside to fetch the rain barrel for their bath water.

Since it takes a long time to chisel the frozen rainwater, Almanzo picks up Royal’s hatchet and hits icicles to use instead. They whoop and holler with fun as they hit the icicles. Mother hears the noise and makes sure the rowdy boys are okay.

While the ice melts and Mother cooks beans, ham, and more, Almanzo uses the heat from the stove to warm his bathtub. Alone in the room, he sinks into the bath and washes, scrubbing with soap and a cloth. Mother inspects him afterward to make sure he’s clean. Since it’s freezing outside, his siblings and parents will dump his water and then use fresh water for themselves until everyone is clean.

Almanzo wakes to his favorite stacked pancakes that Mother makes. They enjoy the buttery, maple-covered stacks and then hurry to church in their wagon. Father hitches the well-brushed, pretty horses, while Almanzo wishes he could hold the reins. The horses are so well trained that Father doesn’t have to use the whip for them to trot.

Almanzo is proud of his family’s fine Sunday clothes. His Mother wears a fancy brown dress with delicate lace and a hoop skirt, and his father wears a suit. The church service is two hours long. Almanzo feels bored but afterward talks to his cousin Frank, who lives in town. Frank has an expensive new hat from New York City with earmuffs that clip at the top. Almanzo knows he can’t have one, since Mother sews his warm caps, and he doesn’t want to waste his parents’ money. Frank chides Almanzo and Royal for not having their own horses. Almanzo retorts he’ll soon have a colt. He yearns for his own horse.

At home, they relax, since no one works full days on holy Sundays. His family reads, naps, and more while he reflects on his boredom: “But Almanzo just sat. He had to. He was not allowed to do anything else, for Sunday was not a day for working or playing. It was a day for going to church and for sitting still” (94).

Almanzo suggests staying home to have lessons with Bright and Star again. His parents agree, and he trains them for the second time with the yoke and carrots. The little cows start to learn his commands to come forward and back up.

Father takes him to the woods to gather tree limbs. In his workshop, he shows Almanzo how to peel the tree bark back and braid the bark to make a whip. Almanzo works hard on his whip for days until it’s ready. He can crack it like his father. He uses the whip to teach Bright and Star how to turn left and right, but he never cracks the whip against his animals, only in the air. Almanzo knows that you must always be gentle and patient during animal training.

He spends all the free time he can training them. One day, when the calves misbehave and run all around, knocking him down, he gets angry and cries but still doesn’t strike them with the whip. Father praises his patience and tells him to keep working slow and steady with the calves.

Louis and Pierre, sons of the Frenchmen Lazy John and French Joe, visit Almanzo to play. Almanzo hitches up his sled behind the calves for the first time, testing them by carrying Louis first. Bright and Star listen well, so Pierre joins Louis on the sled. Almanzo opens the gates to let the calves roam. He climbs on the sled next, but Bright and Star suddenly don’t listen. They crash through the snow by the road, sending the boys tumbling off the sled. Almanzo learns that he must train the calves better.

As winter eases into spring, icicles melt and the earth warms up. It’s the time of year for collecting sap, so Almanzo stays home to help Father with this chore for days in a row. They burrow holes in the trees to collect the maple sap in buckets. When they return with warm buckets of maple syrup, Mother strains and boils it to make maple sugar. They keep collecting until they have all their sugar for the year from the sap.

As spring arrives, a potato buyer comes to town. Father counts on his family to help, and the siblings race in a contest to fill the most buckets with their potato crops from the cellar. Father sells $500 worth of potatoes, and everyone’s happy.

Next, they do spring cleaning together. Almanzo beats dust out of rugs, fetches wood, cleans carpets, throws out any bad food in the cellar, whitewashes the cellar, and more: “Everything in the house was moved, everything was scrubbed and scoured and polished. All the curtains were down, all the feather-beds were outdoors, airing, all the blankets and quilts were washed” (117). His family spends days doing all the cleaning as spring flowers bloom, signaling that it’s time to work in the farm fields.